A welcome new release from Freeman's - this time the theme is "Love" An uplifting theme for difficult times, this anthology includes short works from a variety of authors including classic favorites (Anne Carson, Haruki Murakami, Louise Erdrich, Sandra Cisneros, and Richard Russo) - to those who are less well known. My favorite piece in the collection is Semezdin Mehmedinovic's "Snowflake" which manages to poetically reveal love between long-time spouses, and the love for a distant homeland while living in exile.

Editor John Freeman's introduction draws readers into the essential, complicated, mysterious bundles of emotion and life that we call--so simply--love. Freeman claims, "It's a hard time to believe in love. So many spectacles of its opposite are on display."

I would urge, now more than ever, read about love, believe in love, make love happen. This collection offers windows into various stages of love, yearning, loss, hope.

A version of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness and is republished here with permission.

John Freeman grew up in the "multiverse" of California, experiencing reality as "a series of stacked versions of itself," where layers of diverse and simultaneous happenings surround its inhabitants. Freeman's: California is part of a theme-shifting anthology series Freeman edits twice yearly, and it captures the western state's complex history through the eyes of both new writers and established names.

Each piece in California provides a window into a state-shaped microcosm marked by homelessness, calamitous climate change, displacement and mental illness, while also illuminated by community, friendship, acceptance, precious avocados and glorious sunsets. In "Boxes," Matt Sumell ponders fine lines that separate people as he finds commonality with the homeless man living in a coffin-shaped structure outside his studio, their minds filled with similarly antagonistic voices.

Rabih Alameddine contributes a sublime piece on living in San Francisco during the AIDS epidemic. After he tests positive for HIV, he goes on a shopping spree, then becomes perhaps the greatest surly bartender ever to sit on a stool reading and watching soccer while resenting any patron who makes him work. Bursting with caustic humor and grace, "How to Bartend" reflects the best of California when the hard-drinking Irish regulars discover Alameddine is gay.

From every facet of the literary world, this cacophony of fresh and well-known writers (Jennifer Egan, Tommy Orange, Anthony Marra) with every award under their collective belts (Lambda, National Book, Walt Whitman, O. Henry, Pulitzer) movingly interprets struggles and dreams in the Sunshine State.